Media release

North Harbour Stadium making last minute run

November 22, 2006

North Shore City Council and North Harbour Stadium are making a last minute attempt to convince Auckland’s city and regional councillors that North Harbour Stadium is the right venue to host the 2011 Rugby World Cup.

North Shore City Mayor George Wood, Deputy Mayor Dianne Hale and North Harbour Stadium CEO Brendon O’Connor are presenting to the Auckland City Council tomorrow [Thursday] and are also urgently seeking a meeting with the Auckland Regional Council. This follows a meeting with Sports Minister Trevor Mallard last week, when the Minister confirmed that North Harbour Stadium was still a live option.

Mr Wood says the results in today’s New Zealand Herald vindicate his view that North Harbour Stadium should have been an option from the start and hasn’t been properly considered.

The Herald’s results showed Eden Park had 39.5 percent support, the Waterfront concept had 29.7 per cent and North Harbour Stadium followed closely with 25.4 per cent.

“It really shows that the Government was short-sighted by making it a two-horse race between the Waterfront and Eden Park, when it should have been a three-horse race to include North Harbour Stadium,” he says.

North Harbour Stadium has received little media coverage but the public is clearly starting to back the Albany venue as the ‘buildability’ problems and expense of the other options become glaringly obvious.

“It really highlights what a number of politicians and key business people around Auckland have been saying over the last couple of weeks - North Harbour Stadium is the most low risk and cost effective option that is only 10 minutes up the road from downtown Auckland,” George Wood says.

“The process needs more time and North Harbour Stadium needs to be more closely considered by the public and Auckland’s city and regional councillors.”

North Harbour Stadium CEO, Brendon O’Connor, says his stadium is the most economic option and is designed and zoned for expansion, making it the most logical choice.

“We are sitting on 28 hectares of land without the long and protracted resource consent issues that the Waterfront and Eden Park face,” says Mr O’Connor.

“It will cost $226m to increase our capacity to 60,000; Eden Park will cost around $385m and the Waterfront will cost in excess of $500m - which doesn’t include infrastructure like car parks and new transport routes.”

North Harbour Stadium is the only stadium that has the transport infrastructure to cater for 60,000 people with the benefit of two major roading investments by the Government.

“With Eden Park the public will spend $43m building their over-bridge and bus station – that’s $43m that should be spent elsewhere on solving Auckland’s transport issues,” he says.

The Northern Busway will be completed next year and the southern and western motorway extensions (ring route) mean that spectators travelling to an event at North Harbour Stadium from the south, the airport or western suburbs such as Mt Albert and Henderson will have a second motorway option.

This means two major arterial routes feeding into the stadium as well as the bus way link and North Harbour Stadium’s 28 hectares which makes it easy to design easy access in and out of the stadium from all sides.

(ends)

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